Is the Secret Service in the news? That's not very secretive. Yes, well – despite the image of Britain's counterintelligence and security agency as undercover James Bonds operating on the margins, gliding along the dark underbelly of the world in order to keep it safe for democracy – MI5 is launching a recruitment drive.

Can anyone apply, or do you still have to be a smooth-talking hunk or Oxbridge aristocrat fluent in Russian? No, and this time round it is a recruitment drive aimed at women. Or "gentlemen in skirts" as they are probably still known on internal memos.

They want more women? Why? And do you need to be called Rapid O'Shorthand or Busty McBum? Apparently the gentler sex is put off careers in military intelligence because of the violence in Spooks, the pop-cultural face du jour of MI5, whose umpty-billionth series ends tonight.

Hmm. I assumed it was largely the enduring image of MI5 as a snobs-and-suits, boys-only, toffs' club that would have put them off, not an inability to distinguish between faces-being-burned-in-deep-fat-fryers-a-la-Lisa-Faulkner's-early-exit drama, and real life. Nonsense. It's because they think they'll have to spend their whole time running around London after terrorists and being blown up while trying to rescue kidnapped home secretaries (we miss you, Hermione Norris).

When in fact . . . ? Being an entry-level – and indeed many other kinds – of MI5 recruit is basically typing. And filing. Very careful filing, but filing nevertheless. And data entry. You need a computer degree, not a wetsuit under your black tie.

So the new motto should be: "Neither shaken nor stirred, but frequently spreadsheeted"? Yes. Or the Latin for "Spying – it's just not as sexy in real life."

Do say: "I am aware that Peter Firth will not be my boss and I won't get to shag Richard Armitage, but I still want to join."

Don't say: "I'm handy with a deep-fat fryer, if nothing else."

• This column was amended on 10 November 2010. The original said "I am aware that Tim Pigott-Smith will not be my boss". This has been corrected.